BBC TV Deal

[Vambo]

Possibly worth adding that some folks (ie me) will watch RL on Sky regardless of where else it's being shown? 

Only reason I have Sky is for the RL so why would I watch it anywhere else?

[Bedfordshire Bronco]

18 minutes ago, Vambo said:

Possibly worth adding that some folks (ie me) will watch RL on Sky regardless of where else it's being shown? 

Only reason I have Sky is for the RL so why would I watch it anywhere else?

I prefer SKY to BBC coverage and the old C4 coverage 

Carney is funny and knowledgeable. I don't really like Wilkin but it's interesting what he will come up with and always interesting to see if he has been drinking before coming on air. Also I am love with Jenna....and I am pretty sure she feels the same way about me 

We need more of Wells and his screen which is great too

Edited May 15, 2024 by Bedfordshire Bronco

[Futtocks]

The match in question could be seen live on SL+ too. I watched in on there, not BBC3. 

[Martyn Sadler]

3 hours ago, Dave T said:

It is, but exactly the same could be said for the game a month ago when it got double this. 

I think we are all agreeing with the same point that the BBC and the sport needs to do more to get more eyes on the game, but I don't really think we can ever spin 55k as a good number.

But, as I alluded to in an earlier post, I do think this is a test at the moment, and hopefully the data will show us which slots work, which channels, which matches appeal etc. 

It's not a good number but it all depends what we are looking for.

I think it's good to see Rugby League delving into new territory, either geographically or in terms of broadcasting.

In doing that, you never quite know what unexpected outcomes you may benefit from.

I'll give you one example.

I still remember watching Wakefield Trinity playing a home game against St Helens 'on the road' at Barnsley's Oakwell stadium 25 years ago.

It was the only time Wakefield took a home game to Barnsley.

Apart from me, one of the other people in the stadium that day was a young schoolboy called Matthew Ellis, who had been brought up on football but was watching his first live Rugby League match.

Matthew was inspired by Trinity's victory that day and 25 years later he is a multi-millionaire who owns Trinity and looks like reviving the club's fortunes.

If that game hadn't gone to Barnsley, would he still have bought Trinity? Who knows.

That sort of thing, by definition, only happens very rarely.

But if you don't push the boat out, you'll never hook a big fish.

[Click]

31 minutes ago, Martyn Sadler said:

It's not a good number but it all depends what we are looking for.

I think it's good to see Rugby League delving into new territory, either geographically or in terms of broadcasting.

In doing that, you never quite know what unexpected outcomes you may benefit from.

I'll give you one example.

I still remember watching Wakefield Trinity playing a home game against St Helens 'on the road' at Barnsley's Oakwell stadium 25 years ago.

It was the only time Wakefield took a home game to Barnsley.

Apart from me, one of the other people in the stadium that day was a young schoolboy called Matthew Ellis, who had been brought up on football but was watching his first live Rugby League match.

Matthew was inspired by Trinity's victory that day and 25 years later he is a multi-millionaire who owns Trinity and looks like reviving the club's fortunes.

If that game hadn't gone to Barnsley, would he still have bought Trinity? Who knows.

That sort of thing, by definition, only happens very rarely.

But if you don't push the boat out, you'll never hook a big fish.

Didn't you give this example like a week ago as well?

[Dave T]

39 minutes ago, Martyn Sadler said:

It's not a good number but it all depends what we are looking for.

I think it's good to see Rugby League delving into new territory, either geographically or in terms of broadcasting.

In doing that, you never quite know what unexpected outcomes you may benefit from.

I'll give you one example.

I still remember watching Wakefield Trinity playing a home game against St Helens 'on the road' at Barnsley's Oakwell stadium 25 years ago.

It was the only time Wakefield took a home game to Barnsley.

Apart from me, one of the other people in the stadium that day was a young schoolboy called Matthew Ellis, who had been brought up on football but was watching his first live Rugby League match.

Matthew was inspired by Trinity's victory that day and 25 years later he is a multi-millionaire who owns Trinity and looks like reviving the club's fortunes.

If that game hadn't gone to Barnsley, would he still have bought Trinity? Who knows.

That sort of thing, by definition, only happens very rarely.

But if you don't push the boat out, you'll never hook a big fish.

I agree. And it's why I prefer us trying to hit the numbers to increase the chances of examples like the above. 

[Martyn Sadler]

40 minutes ago, Click said:

Didn't you give this example like a week ago as well?

I'm not sure it was as recently as that.

But I'm you would be amazed at how much repetition there is on forums such as this.

I'd be surprised if you didn't do it yourself.

And some things are important enough to need saying more than once.

[fighting irish]

On 14/05/2024 at 14:03, gingerjon said:

No.

Next question.

The next question was on the original post. So was the next one after that.

The question about the BBC was speculative and one of several possibilities which might account for/ explain why the greatest game has been hidden away from existing fans and newcomers alike.

A tragedy, don't you agree?

My question in its entirety was which of the three options I presented, or some sickly combination of all three explains the above? 

Either way, the outcome is, shall we say, less than we'd hoped for.

My point was why do we keep missing the mark so woefully, time and time again, when we are supposed to be represented by experts in the field, RL commercial and/or IMG?

As an aside, are you still so angry with me, that you can't engage with me like an adult? 

 

[fighting irish]

On 14/05/2024 at 14:19, Martyn Sadler said:

I'm reliably informed that RL Commercial went with the BBC rather than Channel 4 because it feared that otherwise the BBC might pull out of covering the Challenge Cup.

I think it's regrettable that more games aren't shown on BBC2 rather than BBC3 or online, but there are other elements to the BBC's coverage as you will see from the original press release.

Having said that, the loss of Channel 4's coverage, its high production values and particularly the role within that of Adam Hills was a high price to pay for the contract being given to the BBC.

If your first line is true Martin, I think that's a very sad state of affairs indeed. Are you saying this ''threat'' was used as a lever to influence our compliance, or not? If our negotiators believed there was a risk of losing the Challenge cup coverage, why didn't they explore the BBC's position explicitly.

I hope you don't mean they were ''reading the omens'' and decided it's best to err on the safe side and just ''give in'' rather than poke the bear?

What I find myself wondering (and hinted at in my original post) is, weren't the details of the amount of coverage and the channels they were offering part of the negotiations?

Surely they just didn't say we'll give you £X and RL said ok? Surely our blokes are more sophisticated than that?

The fact that great games with huge potential to hook new viewers and lifelong fans, are hidden away on BBC3 must have been known by ''us'' in advance, so why the hell did we agree to it?

I agree that the loss of Adam Hill's and his C4 colleagues (and their production team) is very sad indeed.  I wish we could get them back. 

[RigbyLuger]

1 hour ago, fighting irish said:

I agree that the loss of Adam Hill's and his C4 colleagues (and their production team) is very sad indeed.  I wish we could get them back. 

Hills with Tomkins and Priim vs. Arnold, Hunter-Paul and friends is a no contest.

[gingerjon]

2 hours ago, fighting irish said:

 

As an aside, are you still so angry with me, that you can't engage with me like an adult? 

 

I'm flippant with everyone. It's never personal.

[gingerjon]

BBC showed their woke agenda this evening by having a pretty-much-unadvertised WSL soccer game on BBC *Four* this evening.

Adam Hills would also be around less this year to present sport on any channel as (I believe) Channel 4's budget cuts mean fewer episodes of The Last Leg and he goes home to Oz when he's not filming that.

[Archie Gordon]

On 14/05/2024 at 21:19, gingerjon said:

If you believe, for example, that they'd rather be showing some minority women's sport to ram down throats in the name of woke then you need to explain how come they do actually have the rights to another Super League - netball's - and give it an even worse deal in terms of visibility than RL has.

I believe that, unlike Channel 4, the BBC paid for this deal?

I don't think that the netball SL should be our yardstick. That we are even discussing which gets better treatment from BBC Sport is a worry. Each is hidden away and accessible only to their diehards. And one thing the netball diehards have in their favour is that they have a sticky article on their BBC page that lists every game being streamed. 

I think we got suckered in on this BBC deal. That the netball SL is our comparator is a sign of that.

[RP London]

11 minutes ago, Archie Gordon said:

I don't think that the netball SL should be our yardstick. That we are even discussing which gets better treatment from BBC Sport is a worry. Each is hidden away and accessible only to their diehards. And one thing the netball diehards have in their favour is that they have a sticky article on their BBC page that lists every game being streamed. 

I think we got suckered in on this BBC deal. That the netball SL is our comparator is a sign of that.

I think we should absolutely aspire to an awful lot of what the Netball SL and Netball as a whole does and has done over the past 10 or so years.. their growth in terms of participation and spectators as well as coverage has been fantastic. 

I think we can get very lost in the fact that we are Rugby League and have almost a "dont you know who I am?" type feel about us, where as for most of the UK the answer is "no"... Netball on the other hand.. 

[Archie Gordon]

Another point of failure on this deal is SL game highlights. Again, they never break out onto the main page of BBC Sport and so they must only be seen by diehards. But even then they come out after the very same highlights have been posted by SL and Sky - it's the very definition of pointless.

[RP London]

17 hours ago, Martyn Sadler said:

It's not a good number but it all depends what we are looking for.

I think it's good to see Rugby League delving into new territory, either geographically or in terms of broadcasting.

In doing that, you never quite know what unexpected outcomes you may benefit from.

I'll give you one example.

I still remember watching Wakefield Trinity playing a home game against St Helens 'on the road' at Barnsley's Oakwell stadium 25 years ago.

It was the only time Wakefield took a home game to Barnsley.

Apart from me, one of the other people in the stadium that day was a young schoolboy called Matthew Ellis, who had been brought up on football but was watching his first live Rugby League match.

Matthew was inspired by Trinity's victory that day and 25 years later he is a multi-millionaire who owns Trinity and looks like reviving the club's fortunes.

If that game hadn't gone to Barnsley, would he still have bought Trinity? Who knows.

That sort of thing, by definition, only happens very rarely.

But if you don't push the boat out, you'll never hook a big fish.

I tend to agree its one reason I dont think enough emphasis is put on the Student game and the amateur expansion games with the DOs, junior levels and so on.. who might you attract as players who may go on to do xyz and then invest back or increase the coverage etc.. 

[Archie Gordon]

1 minute ago, RP London said:

I think we should absolutely aspire to an awful lot of what the Netball SL and Netball as a whole does and has done over the past 10 or so years.. their growth in terms of participation and spectators as well as coverage has been fantastic. 

I think we can get very lost in the fact that we are Rugby League and have almost a "dont you know who I am?" type feel about us, where as for most of the UK the answer is "no"... Netball on the other hand.. 

I completely agree - the netball SL seems to work really hard to push itself.

However, I don't think that means they are anywhere near the size of the men's RL SL. Do you really think that?

 

[RP London]

Just now, Archie Gordon said:

Another point of failure on this deal is SL game highlights. Again, they never break out onto the main page of BBC Sport and so they must only be seen by diehards. But even then they come out after the very same highlights have been posted by SL and Sky - it's the very definition of pointless.

I always go to the BBC for my highlights packages before I'd look on SKY. I very rarely look at Sky for news either normal news or sports news its always the BBC.. so it doesnt matter to me that they are after Sky as I never look there.. I know that that is arguably just me but I would guess (just by the law of averages) that I'm not alone.. 

That they are not on the front page etc though I do agree.

[RP London]

Just now, Archie Gordon said:

I completely agree - the netball SL seems to work really hard to push itself.

However, I don't think that means they are anywhere near the size of the men's RL SL. Do you really think that?

 

where did i say they were the same size? to an extent you would also need to quantify what you mean by that to get a proper answer as in some metrics they may well be bigger, they are to many women what 5-a-side football is to men for example. I play 5-a-side (badly) every monday and where we play there is a full on netball league on 2-3 courts going on every monday, wednesday and friday (at least) with back to back games all evening, and I know from others that there are multiple places around the city doing the same, so participation in those terms will probably make Netball bigger than RL (Statistica say in 2023 280,800 people participated in netball Rugby League was around 55,000 for example).

What I did say though was that they are a competitor and they are a competitor in the market place of eyes, hours of TV and bandwidth that we need, and definitely in female participation.. so yes they are and they make better noises than we do at the moment. 

We are not as big as we pump our chests out and say we are and we need to be looking at some of these sports coming through and see what they are doing before they do, absolutely, take us over becuase we are very much standing still/going backwards while they advance. 

[gingerjon]

27 minutes ago, Archie Gordon said:

I don't think that the netball SL should be our yardstick. That we are even discussing which gets better treatment from BBC Sport is a worry. Each is hidden away and accessible only to their diehards. And one thing the netball diehards have in their favour is that they have a sticky article on their BBC page that lists every game being streamed. 

I think we got suckered in on this BBC deal. That the netball SL is our comparator is a sign of that.

No, I only used netball because there is a belief the BBC aren't doing enough for rugby league because of woke, or some such nonsense.

The WSL football was on BBC Four last night.

[RigbyLuger]

22 minutes ago, RP London said:

That they are not on the front page etc though I do agree.

They need that space for some thing daft happening in baseball. SL is far from the only domestic sport who could be served better by our national broadcaster. Ice hockey has good attendance figures, but usually only bad news gets any kind of "news" unless it's BBC Wales reporting on Cardiff's team.

Also, on the increase of women's sports coverage, what are we doing with highlights from the WSL? Why aren't they everywhere?

Edited May 16, 2024 by RigbyLuger

[RP London]

1 minute ago, RigbyLuger said:

They need that space for some thing daft happening in baseball. SL is far from the only domestic sport who could be served better by our national broadcaster. Ice hockey has good attendance figures, but usually only bad news gets any kind of "news" unless it's BBC Wales reporting on Cardiff's team.

 

I mean I do like the someone slipping and hurting themselves trying to catch with the wrong hand just becuase it has a mit on it, or being hit in the head in the one instance the batter actually hits the ball.. but you are right there is an awful lot of that rather than "watch this sport you wouldn't normally watch, its brilliant!"

[Archie Gordon]

10 minutes ago, RP London said:

where did i say they were the same size? to an extent you would also need to quantify what you mean by that to get a proper answer as in some metrics they may well be bigger, they are to many women what 5-a-side football is to men for example. I play 5-a-side (badly) every monday and where we play there is a full on netball league on 2-3 courts going on every monday, wednesday and friday (at least) with back to back games all evening, and I know from others that there are multiple places around the city doing the same, so participation in those terms will probably make Netball bigger than RL (Statistica say in 2023 280,800 people participated in netball Rugby League was around 55,000 for example).

What I did say though was that they are a competitor and they are a competitor in the market place of eyes, hours of TV and bandwidth that we need, and definitely in female participation.. so yes they are and they make better noises than we do at the moment. 

We are not as big as we pump our chests out and say we are and we need to be looking at some of these sports coming through and see what they are doing before they do, absolutely, take us over becuase we are very much standing still/going backwards while they advance. 

I think the intimation was that we (RL) shouldn't just expect to get better treatment than netball just because we think we're bigger. But if we are bigger, then we're bigger - the pump our chests out stuff doesn't change that.

I completely agree with just about every other comment you make.

[gingerjon]

12 minutes ago, RP London said:

I mean I do like the someone slipping and hurting themselves trying to catch with the wrong hand just becuase it has a mit on it, or being hit in the head in the one instance the batter actually hits the ball.. but you are right there is an awful lot of that rather than "watch this sport you wouldn't normally watch, its brilliant!"

It's worth saying that the BBC have now gone down the route that means that it's unlikely each of us is seeing exactly the same home page as anyone else. The videos and links you're seeing are now linked to previous activity and to any personalisation you've put on there - with the exception, I think, of the initial main block.

[RP London]

6 minutes ago, Archie Gordon said:

I think the intimation was that we (RL) shouldn't just expect to get better treatment than netball just because we think we're bigger. But if we are bigger, then we're bigger - the pump our chests out stuff doesn't change that.

I completely agree with just about every other comment you make.

What metric are we using for bigger though? we definitely think we are but Netball is a bigger nationwide sport, it has more participation and has grown massivly.. Its very difficult to really pin it down as we are probably bigger where we are strongest but not outside where as they have the strength nationwide (if that makes sense).. its a tough call. 

I just wish we put the same effort in as they have, the difference it would make would be huge imho.